The Summer Garden. Paullina Simons
wife?” Levine grinned.
“Does he?”
“But I told him old soldiers don’t like to blame their troubles on their women. He insisted though.”
Alexander looked from Sam to Levine and back again. “Are you guys fucking with me?”
“No, no,” Sam said, half-seriously. “I really considered blaming it all on her. It’s not even a lie: you actually didn’t know we’d been looking for you—though ignorance is not a legal defense. But she can plead spousal privilege since she can’t testify against you, and we’re done. What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Alexander drew out. “What’s plan B?”
They didn’t have a plan B.
“I will object to everything. That’s my plan B.” Levine smiled. “I just passed my bar exam. I’m retained by State as legal counsel. You’re only my second case. But don’t worry, I’m ready. Remember, don’t be riled.” He squinted his eyes at Alexander. “Are you … easily riled?”
The guy was scrappy. “Let’s just say I’m not not easily riled,” Alexander replied. “But I’ve been provoked by tougher men than these.” He was thinking about Slonko, the man who interrogated his mother, his father, and finally—years later—himself. It hadn’t gone well for Slonko. Alexander decided not to tell the just-passed-the-bar-exam Levine about the intricacies of Soviet NKVD interrogation—half naked in a freezing dark cell, starved and beaten, without witnesses, being pummeled with vicious insinuations about Tatiana.
Alexander was perspiring in his heavy uniform. He was not used to being this close to other people. He stood up, but there was nowhere to go. Sam was nervously chewing his nails in between tying and retying his tie.
“Some hay will almost certainly be made over your citizenship issue,” Levine told Alexander. “Be careful of those questions. You’ll see. There’ll be some dueling between the departments.”
Alexander mulled a question of his own. “Do you think”—he didn’t want to ask—“that extradition might, um, come up?”
Sam and Levine exchanged fleeting frank glances, and Levine mumbled, all averted, “I shouldn’t think so,” and Sam, also averted, said, “If all fails, we’re reverting to plan A: Save your ass, blame your wife.”
Sam told him the hearing would be conducted by seven men: two from State (“One of whom will be me”), two from Justice (one Immigration and Naturalization, one FBI), and two from Defense (“One lieutenant, one old colonel; I think you might like young Tom Richter; he’s been very interested in your file”) and the most important person at the hearing—Congressman John Rankin, the senior member from the House of Un-American Activities Committee, who would come to determine if Alexander had ties to the Communist Party at home or abroad. After the session was over, the seven men would put the question to vote by majority. John Rankin would be the one to cast the tiebreaker—if it came to that.
“He’ll also be the one to determine whether or not you need to be investigated by the full HUAC,” Sam said. “I don’t have to tell you,” he added, telling Alexander nonetheless, “at all costs, try to avoid that.”
“Yes,” said Levine, “if you go on to meet with HUAC, you’re fucked. So no matter how rude anyone is, be polite, apologize and say, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, and I’m sorry, sir.”
“You’re very lucky in some respects,” Sam said (Alexander agreed), “you really couldn’t be getting a hearing at a better time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Alexander desperately needed a smoke, but he didn’t think there was enough oxygen in the office to light one small cigarette.
“HUAC is about to launch an explosive investigation into one of our own,” said Levine. “Count your blessings. Alger Hiss, you heard of him?”
Alexander had. Alger Hiss had been the director of a committee presiding over the founding of the United Nations. Hiss had been leading the charge on the U.N. since 1944. He nodded.
“Hiss was at Yalta with Roosevelt and Churchill, he was the President’s adviser, and now he’s been accused by a former communist colleague of being a Soviet spy—since the 1930s!”
“That’s one high-up man facing some high-up charges,” noted Alexander.
“No shit,” said Sam. “Point is, HUAC is busy with much bigger fish than you, so they want you, need you, to be square and on the up and up. So be on the up and up, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Alexander, standing up and heading for the door, out of the stifling room. “Absolutely, sir. I’m sorry, sir, but I have to have a fucking smoke, or I’m going to die, sir.”
Lieutenant Thomas Richter
Alexander was grateful that the room in which he met with the representatives of State, Defense and Justice across the National Mall was bigger than Matt Levine’s office. The room in a Congressional testimonial room on the second floor of the Old Executive Building near the Capitol was narrow and long, with a row of tall open windows to his right that overlooked trees and gardens. The half-pack of cigarettes he smoked en route from State to Old Executive calmed him but did not quell his hunger or thirst. It was mid-afternoon.
He downed a glass of water, asked for another, asked if he could smoke, and sat tensely—and smokelessly—behind a small wooden table across from a raised wooden platform. Soon seven men filed in. Alexander watched them. They took their places, took a long good look at him, who was standing in front of them, appraised him, sat. He remained standing.
They were serious and well-dressed. Four of the men were in their fifties, two looked to be Alexander’s age and one was 39-year-old Sam, who could’ve used a smoke himself. And Sam said Tania was overwrought. Tania was a woman—what was Sam’s excuse? The two from Defense, one young, one old, were in full military dress. There were microphones in front of everyone. A stenographer, a court reporter, a bailiff were present. The bailiff said there would be no chair at the hearing and the members were therefore allowed to direct questions to Alexander and to each other.
After Alexander raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth and the meeting was called to order, but nearly before he finished saying, “So help me God,” the young soldier from Defense opened his mouth.
“Lieutenant Thomas Richter,” the soldier said. “Tell me, why are you wearing a U.S. military uniform? Officer’s dress greens no less?”
“I’m a military man,” Alexander said. “I own no suit. The dress greens were given to me by Mark Bishop, the U.S. Military Governor of Berlin.” It was better than lobstering dungarees. Or a Red Army uniform. He liked Richter’s question. It was as if Richter had invited Alexander to set himself slightly outside the order of this civilian committee.
“So what do you call yourself nowadays?” Richter continued. “Do we refer to you as Commander? Captain? Major? Judging from your file, you seem to have had a number of ranks.”
“I was major for only a few weeks,” said Alexander. “I was wounded and arrested, after which I was demoted back to captain as punishment. I served as commander of a Railroad Patrol in General Meretskov’s 67th Army and of a penal battalion in General Rokossovsky’s 97th Army—as captain in both capacities. Upon my last conviction in 1945, the Red Army stripped me of my rank and title.”
“Well, you seem like a military man to me,” remarked Richter. “You say you served as an officer from 1937 to 1945? I see you received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. There is no higher military honor in the Red Army. As I understand, it’s the equivalent of our Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“Mister Barrington,” interrupted an elderly, desiccated man, introducing himself as Mr. Drake from the Department of Justice. “Major, Captain, Mister. Medals, years of service, titles, ranks—none of these things are at issue or our concern or the purpose